Us or Them: Chapter One
by cadoo22
Summary: Nineteen year old Lux and her troop have been sent out from the main resistance base to find any human survivors, but Lux might loose her faith in humanity and side with the aliens along this journey.
1. Chapter 1

"Go." At my command Keith, Brandon, and Harlan sneak out from under the bushes, cross the street and enter Cosco through the back entrance. John and I watch Eli for a sign of trouble since his sensitive ears can hear things most humans can't hear. Though, now days, there aren't many humans to compare his sonar ears to.

"They're on their way out." Eli said.

"Thomas, bring the car around. Slowly." I tell Thomas through my walkie. He's not the best driver but he's worse at controlling his nervousness and would ruin the entire operation. So we've stuck him with driver duty. Which I'm still not sure was a good idea seeing as though Thomas is driving abnormally slow and has caught the attention of one of Them.

"Eli." I don't have to specify what I want because he's already on it. He runs as fast as he can through the trees making sure to make as much rustling noise as he can to try and defer It's attention from Thomas's driving. It works and Thomas is able to stop the truck outside the door so that Keith, Brandon, and Harlan can load it up.

"Trouble's coming." Eli warns me.

"Guys move out, TC." They nod in my general direction and start to move faster with the last of our stolen goods. Just as blue and red lights flash around the corner toward our truck Thomas jumps out of the car and whispers, "Wait," and makes his way inside the store.

"Thomas what the fuck are you doing? Get back in the car we need you to drive now!" I almost scream into the walkie.

"It'll just take one second." Thomas informs me.

"I'll go get him." John offers.

"No. John you drive. Eli, direct the others. I'll get Thomas." We run across the street, John jumps in the driver's seat and Eli gets shotgun. They drive away as I run inside Cosco.

Cosco sells their grocery items in bulk, which makes it the number one place, my troop, and I rob. We sneak through the back entrance where they keep everything stocked warehouse style. We only have to come here every month, maybe every two months if we're careful.

I spot Thomas in the corner looking intently at something I can't see from here. I pause next to the door way and take a moment to survey my surroundings. There are two workers, twenty-nine shelves, sixteen lights in the ceiling, and three cops that just got out of their cars and are walking this way. I run at Thomas and without stopping, I tackle him and cover his mouth in anticipation of his nervous high-pitched scream. "AHMMMMMMMM"

"Shut up Thomas! Or I'll just knock you out and drag you outta here." Thomas's eyes got wide at my threat. "Okay. Now just follow my lead." I say as I let go of him and look through the shelves to survey how close the authorities are. Just as I was about to sneak around the shelf to the other side of the store I hear, "CLANKALANK CRASH!" I whip my head around and sure enough Thomas had backed into the shelf full of half priced shovels. Time for plan B. Quickly I take out the contacts case and blindly put in the contacts Eli designed to make human eyes look like Their eyes, which have a silver ring around the pupil.

"Thomas, I'm going to create a diversion and I want you to run out the door and through the woods. Just keep going straight, Eli will find you. Go. Now!" I give Thomas a little push and I run across the isles to the other side, and knock a whole shelf of gardening rakes to the floor. In seconds two cops tap me on the shoulder. I turn around and look into the cops' eyes apologetically. Their faces immediately turn from furious to soft friendly faces when they see the silver ring in my eyes.

"It's okay miss, here let us help you pick these up." Cop One says as they bend down to help.

"Thanks guys." I say like the bubble headed teenager I look like. In the corner of my eye I see Thomas sneak out the door and I send a silent prayer to God that Eli finds Thomas.

When they are done putting the rakes on the shelves I say,

"Gee thanks! I'm such a clutz." My heart is pounding in my chest. I hope they can't hear it.

"You mean that body is a clutz." Cop Two corrects me.

"Right, right this body is. I can't tell you how long it's taking me to get accustomed to it. I guess I'm just a slow learner." I say really caking it on.

"Really? How long have you been in that body?"

"About a month." I say hoping a month is a reasonable amount of time to still be adjusting.

" Oh well we've been hear since the first wave arrived. Boy it's amazing to see how much better this world is now that we have taken control of it." I feel my temperature rising as I try not to stab this stupid alien in the heart for saying that.

"Yeah I wish I was here to see the change. Well my mom is probably waiting in the car so I'm going to go. Thanks again." As I walk away, Cop One grabs my arm and looks deeply into my eyes. I try not to freak out when he says, "Be careful walking to your car. We've had a report of some suspicious behavior in these parts. We think it might be the Resistance," still holding on to my arm.

"The Resistance?" I ask trying to see how much they knew about my troop and me.

"Yes. We haven't had any visuals of them but we have been

getting reports of missing things from stores and from houses nearby." He says still studying my face.

"That's scary. Do you really think that there are some humans we haven't gotten too?" He let go of my arm.

"I wouldn't worry too much about this matter miss. We've got it under control now run along." I ran along. I walked out the front of Cosco trying to look nonchalant as the aliens walked past me. Some smiled at me and I forced a smile back. Once outside I stopped and considered my options. I could walk back to head quarters but who knows if those cops would follow me or not. Or I could…

"Lux!" I looked around at the call of my name and in a parking spot sat our truck with John waving at me from the driver's seat. I walked over and got in the back seat. I then counted to make sure we were all present. Everyone, even Thomas, was accounted for. Then I took out the contacts and put them back safely in the compartment of my left boot.

"So what happened?" Thomas asked me. Still pissed at him I said, "My stupid driver ran inside Cosco for no apparent reason risking the entire mission."

"Oh…right." Thomas said hanging his head.

"Oh…right? Why did you do that Thomas? I need to have people on my team that I can trust with anything. And you couldn't just heed my word and stay in the car? What was so important?"

"Neosporin and band-aids. I thought we could use them. I'm

sorry Lux, I just don't think sometimes."

"You know who else doesn't think? The rest of the human population seeing as though now aliens think for them." I get really close to Thomas's face and say, "You're either one of us, or you're one of them. One little mistake can make you one of them for ever Thomas." I turn away from him and look out the window.

"Did you learn anything?" Eli asked.

"I learned that the contacts you made works perfectly. I also learned that the cops don't know much but they have noticed that we've been raiding nearby homes and stores. We need to make a plan as to whether we should stay for awhile longer or get the hell outta here."

"I say we should get the hell outta here." John said looking in the rearview mirror.

"That was quick, why?" I asked.

"Well alien cops are on behind us." I turn around to look out the back window and sure enough there was not only one cop car but two. Their lights aren't flashing but I they are obviously following us.

"Can you loose them John?"

"We're on a two lane road heading into the Arizona desert Captain. So no."

"Right. We'll just keep going and pray they don't have us pull over." At that moment the cop cars started to flash their lights signaling us to pull over. Well that dream was short lived.


	2. Chapter 2

"Orders?" John asks looking at me through the rearview mirror. I look right back at him as I think of a plan.

"Here," I say handing him my alien contacts. "put these in. Everyone else, go to sleep." Everyone groaned.

"That's like a possum playing dead right in front of a wolf." Eli said.

"It will probably maybe work okay? Now do it." They all heed my order and go possum. I feel the car shake as John pulls off the paved road and on to the bumpy gravel.

"My eye!"

"What's wrong?" I whisper to John.

"These damn contacts are stinging my eyes." I was about to answer when I saw the cop's mid-section walk past the back window.

*tap**tap* "Will you role down your window please?" The warm Arizona air pours in the car.

"Hello officer." John says sweetly.

"Hello sir, sorry to stop you but we….." The officer stopped talking making me nervous.

"Officer?" John asked.

"Sorry, but your eyes are really red!" Yup, the gig is up.

"Oh yeah, I was stung by a bee when my family and I were camping earlier today. We're on our way back home now. They're all tuckered out from the drive hahaha." John's doing a great job at lying to this cop. I wonder what else he's lied about…

"Oh wow! Yeah I heard that the bees in the desert are vicious. Well you should get a doctor to look at that."

"I will officer."

"Well the reason I pulled you over is just because the chief is being paranoid about humans lurking around, but you're clearly not a human. Sorry…"

"Oh no, it's totally fine I understand his concern."

"Yeah well just get those eyes looked at by a doctor and have a goodnight sir."

"Thank you, I will officer." The gravel crunched under the cop's feet as he walked away and I could feel an inaudible sigh of relief from everyone in the car. We pretended to be asleep until John said, "Okay, we're far enough away."

"I for one would like to congratulate Thomas for keeping calm in our situation." I said as I loudly clapped. Everyone joined in and Thomas gave a little bow.

" These aliens are so trustworthy that they don't even ask for I.D." Thomas said.

"Yeah I guess identification is human stuff." Eli said from the front seat. Everyone grew silent from anger or silence, maybe both.

"We can't stay here." I say after I couldn't bare the silence any more.

"Lux, it's too risky for us to move from where we are." Thomas said.

"It will be more risky for us to stay here. Just the fact that they stopped us tonight should be…"

"LUX! I'm not going anywhere okay! If you are set on moving then I'm not going with you." I stared at Thomas with a blank expression waiting for him to say it. "You're never going to find another doctor like me in this fallen world and I'm sure everyone else will agree." He said it. Like so many others, they feel like they have something that no one can replace but the fact of the matter is that we are humans. We survive no matter what. We have the ability to learn what ever it takes to survive which means that I don't need anyone that isn't going to be loyal to me and to the people I love.

"The world has always been fallen Thomas." I said. Then I turned my gaze toward the window, ending the conversation.

Getting into Headquarters is meant to be hard for anyone who doesn't know it's here. We were lucky to find this place especially since we had so many sick and injured people that we needed to hide. We were also lucky to find Thomas who was more than happy to help out by healing these people.

"Thanks for helping to bring everything in guys that means a lot to me as always." I said as I stood in front of our little community of humans.

"Ain't no thang Lux!" Jim, the cowboy from Texas, said.

"_We_ thank _you_ for going out there and getting all of these supplies for us!" Everyone cheered in compliance. My heart warmed.

"Anything for you guys. Tonight," I said getting serious. "we were almost found out." Scattered gasps of shock floated about the room. "I can tell that they are closing in on us. I believe the only thing that we can do is to move out of this place…"

"Or we can stay here in the place that we were lucky enough to find in the first place and wait out this threat." Thomas said making air quotes with his fingers as he said threat. "There is no way that they will be looking for us so closely that they will be able to find this place." Thomas finished.

"The danger isn't that they will find our small dwelling in between these rocks that would look random to any passer by. The danger is that they will have higher guard in stores and in the streets so we won't be able to get food or water. And what if someone gets really sick? There is no way we would be able to help them especially with the increased security that _will _happen if we stay here."

"Do you hear her?" And so it begins. "You're going to take this nineteen year old girl's advice?" Another war over who gets to rule over these scared and confused humans. "She couldn't even save her own family, what makes you think she is capable of…" **Wham**! Eli hit him. He's never been able to tolerate anyone bad mouthing me. I've had to stop him from killing so many people on my behalf. I'm still not sure why he gets so mad about that.

"He's not wrong guys." I say addressing everyone. "I am a woman and I am nineteen….And I couldn't save the rest of my family."

"Just stop." It was Jim. "You have saved each one of us and has never asked for anything in return. The least we can do is give you our loyalty. I think I speak for everyone when we say that you are it, the one we will follow until death."

"Yeah!"

"We love you Lux!" I tried not to cry at the sound of everyone cheering…cheering, for me.

"Sorry, but you're stuck with us." Julie shouted from the back of the crowd. Everyone laughed and when the laughter died off I said, "You guys we can't stay here. Gone are the days where we could find the perfect place and dwell forever inside it. But that's okay, you know why?" I ask them.

"Why Lux?" Eli asked.

"Because this is our world,"

"YEAH!"

"And that means that there is no place for those life sucking parasites!"

"Hell yeah!"

"Our new goal is to find the other humans, and learn how to take our world back."

"That's right! This is OUR world!"

"We leave tomorrow."


	3. Chapter 3

Us or Them

Chapter Three

Thank God for Eli who suggested the moment we found this cave that we have an exit strategy and that we practice at least once a week. Everyone moved to his or her designated area, me included. After I pack all of the things in my small backpack, I run down the dark tunnels in the cave, the light from my lantern bouncing around with every step I take. _No one down here._ I turn on my heels and run down the next tunnel looking for anyone that might be trapped or lost.

***Boom*** The ground shakes and I stumble into the cave wall. _Ugh, what now? _I turn around to get back to the main cave and run smack into Eli.

"What the.."

"Lux, what're you doing?"

Indignant I say, "What am _I_ doing? What're you doing?"

"I was just coming to see if you were okay. And also to tell you that everyone's freaking out." Eli says.

"Well stop talking to me so I can go help." I say pushing past him. As soon as I cross the threshold into the main cave, ***Boom*. **This time I actually fell straight to the ground. I stayed there until the shaking finally stopped. I jump up and call for everyone to drop whatever they're doing and get to the Evac. Room.

"Lux!" I turn at the sound of my name to an exhausted Harlan running toward me. "Lux, Thomas left."

"What? How did he get loose on your watch Harlan?" I practically yell.

"He blind sided me and went for the surface. I ran out into the desert to get him but he saw a cop car passing by on the street and stopped it." I stood there and listened, feeling my eyes grow wider with every word. "I couldn't hear what he said but I saw him yelling and pointing toward our cave."

"So Thomas is the source of the banging and the shaking. He betrayed us, and led them here." Harlan nodded still trying to catch his breath. ***Boom*** "Help me get everyone out of here before they make the roof collapse on us." He nodded and we ran to the Evac. room where everyone was getting sorted into the different cars.

"Lux! We're ready to go!" Eli shouts.

"Okay, two leaders to every van. Eli and I will take the lead; you guys follow us to the next location. Try to stay behind the car in front of you. Let's go!" In pairs all twenty-eight leaders get into their cars. Eli takes the wheel and we lead our family out of our crumbling home.

"They might be waiting to attack us as soon as we exit so be ready to put your driving skills to the test." Eli says into the walkie-talkie.

After about ten minutes of driving we finally shoot out of the end of the tunnel. I grip my gun tighter in anticipation of the war we expected to drive into but there was no one, or thing, insight. We keep driving, avoiding saying anything as to not jinx our good luck. After about twenty minutes of petal to the metal driving, "Well….That was a lot easier than we thought." Brandon's voice says through the walkie-talkie.

"I guess those last few months of not trusting Thomas paid off."

"What do you mean Heath?" I answered through the walkie-talkie.

"I'm pretty sure no one ever told him that there was a back way out of our cave. I don't even think he knew that we had an escape plan HAHAHAHAHAHA!" Everyone in my car erupts in laughter along with Heath, but I can't help but feel sorry for Thomas. He's probably under the knife being prepared for alien insertion as we speak…well laugh. I pull out the map from my bag of the places that we last heard still had humans.

"Okay well Chandler is the closest city that we last heard had survivors we should try there." Eli suggested knowing that I'm not too good at maps.

"Well it looks like we'd have to go through Phoenix to get there." I say double checking to make sure I was right in saying that.

"Is there a problem with that?"

"Well Phoenix is the most populated city in Arizona. There will be so many more chances for us to be seen. Is there maybe a back way or something?" I ask.

"You tell me, you're the one with the map so pressed up against her face that I've been wondering if I should give you two some privacy." Quickly I pull the map away from my face and try to calm down before the blood rushes to my ears.

"Man your ears are brighter than the sun right now!" Eli says making my ears feel even more hot.

"How about you set your eyes on the road huh?" I snap. I casually glance in the side view mirror and notice that non of the other cars that came with us are behind us! It's only our car and the dirt road.

"Eli pull over!" I said trying to keep myself from stomping on the brakes from the passenger seat.

"What is it?" He asks pulling over.

"Where are they?" I ask getting out of the car before it completely stops. One foot on the ground and the police sirens go off. I feel like my foot is cemented to the ground with fear and confusion.

"Lux get in!" Eli says pulling my body into the car by my left arm. The car kick starts off the ground sending gravel and sand everywhichway.

"Wh….I don't understand! What's happening?" Little Lucy asks from the back of the van.

"Confused?" A voice from the walkie-talkie asks.

"Who the hell is this?" I shout into the walkie. "Thomas?"

"It's John." My heart tears at this simple statement. "I'm sorry Lux." This simple statement infuriates me. "YOU'RE SORRY? THAT'S IT! WHY DID YOU DO THIS JOHN? I TRUSTED YOU! WE ALL DID!" I scream into the walkie hoping that if I let it all out, the sharp knife of betrayal will simply come out of my back.

"I was tired of this life of hiding and scraping for food, of darkness." John says without a single ounce of remorse in his voice. "So, I struck a deal with the police. They said that I could stay human and that they would set me up in a house and let me live out my life like normal if I…"

"If you put a bullet in our heads." I spit into the walkie.

"if I turn you in." John corrected me.

"Same difference. You are a rutting fool if you think you can trust those life sucking leaches!"

"No you're the fools if you think you could actually…." Eli took the walkie from my hands and through it out the window.

"What are you doing! What about the others?" Eli ignores my death glares and reaches over me to buckle my seatbelt.

"They're gone Lux. I need to get us out of here and I can't do that with that bastard's voice in this van." I stop trying to wipe away the tears and let them soak my t-shirt. Picking up my gun I lean out the window and shoot the front tire of the police car that's closest to us. This car swerves into the cop car on its left causing a road block.

"How are we supposed to get away from them? Even with the road block we're still on a never ending two lane road." I say looking out the window at the mess I made behind us.

"You really are bad at studying maps huh?" With that Eli pulls us off the road and into the desert. "A little bit farther and we'll reach this road." He said pointing at the map.

"You pointed to a river!"

"Will you just let me drive woman!" _UGH! Seriously the most infuriating man I've ever met!_

"Lux?" I turn around.

"Yes Lucy?"

"Where are the others?" Lucy asks head hanging down as though her six year old mind already knew the answer. Looking around, everyone has their heads hung low, betrayal thick in the air.

" I think you know little Lucy. Right now we just need to focus on getting away from the aliens."

"Oookay." Lucy draws out. I squeeze her shoulder just as the van hits a huge bump.

"My bad!" Eli says swerving the car left and right trying to avoid the boulders randomly scattered about. I look out the window behind us to see if anyone, well anything, is following us.

"See any aliens on our trail?"

"No they aren't coming after us." I turn around to grab the binoculars.

"It looks like all of the cop cars were damaged in the accident I caused. I don't think they'll be able to come after us."

"That's great but…where do we go now?" Little Lucy asked.

"Good question."


	4. Chapter 4

Us or Them

Chapter Four

Night falls and envelopes us quickly making it extremely difficult to see the rocks and boulders in this desert.

"We're going to have to stop. I don't want to risk turning on the headlights and also I think we are almost out of gas."

"Ugh, Eli I can't take anymore bad news." I say rubbing my temples.

"Honestly Lux, I think all I have in me is bad news." At this I look at him. He's gotten so old since all this hell started. I remember that happening to the presidents too. They came into office all shiny and left looking old, tired, and done. I miss being pissed at everything the president did just because everyone else was pissed.

Reluctantly, Eli presses on the brakes, puts the car in park, and turns off the engine.

And we just sit there in the dark.

"Mom? Mom, I have to pee!" Little Lucy said making us all jump a little.

"Shhh, can you hold it? I…we don't have any clue where we are and out of nowhere those, _Things,_" she spat , "could show up!"

"I know where we are." Lucy said. "We're at the water." At this I turned around to look at her.

"Why do you think we're at the water Little Lucy?"

"Can't you hear it?" We all froze and just listened. "Slosh….slosh, slosh." Lucy mimicked.

"Yeah, I..I think I hear it too." Eli said unbuckling his seatbelt and exiting the car. I follow his lead, which made the other three exit the car as well. "Where are you going Eli?" I ask. With the light from the moon I can barely see him bobbing up ahead as he jogs forward. I still don't hear anything.

"I think we're getting closer!" Everyone picks up the pace but I lag behind, not as excited. I mean, even if we do find water, well, that's all we got. Water is important but those Things will definitely find us when the sun comes up. Where do you find humans running from something? Where do you ALWAYS find those humans? By the river.

"Lux?!" Eli asked, I can hear a slight panic in his voice so I answer quickly, " I'm coming, sorry." Despite my reply, I see Eli running around looking for me in the dark.

"Here, I'm here Eli."

"We found it." He says smiling, slightly out of breath. "And it's beautiful." There's a slight pause before he says, "Don't look at me like that."

"Like what?" I ask.

"Like, I just told you that I found out how to kick those Things out of _our _planet." I don't say anything. "*sigh* I know that it's not an answer to our prayers or anything but," he rubs his head, "it gives them a little hope. It gives me a little hope."

"Yeah, I…I just don't have it in me to actually feel hope anymore. All that river makes me feel is scared. I see a red target on all our backs followed by visions of little Lucy under a _scalpel_ and I…" I hate crying but…

"Hey," Eli pulls me into a tight hug, "it's going to be alright. I mean, I ***sigh*** I can't predict the future. I can't tell you that tomorrow we won't all be under a scalpel but…I just know that we are still human for a reason. God, He has a plan, I know it."

"Some plan." I say. I used to believe in God. That Jesus loved me soo much that He would literally die the way He did just for me, but…I guess I would need more to believe in Him now. Still, I like hearing Eli talk about Him. I like being apart of his hope for just a little bit.

"Eli? Lux?"

"We're coming!" Eli yells back. I wipe my face. I may be young but these people look up to me and I'm not going to give them more reasons to be concerned.

Eli leads me to the river.

_Distant crackling "Th…can…" _I wake with a start to the broken voice. I sit up and look all around. No aliens. I relax and check to make sure we haven't lost anyone. Five people including me are all accounted for. It was pretty rough sleeping next to the river seeing as though it gets pretty frigid around it especially at night. Noted. I stand to stretch my body out and look around. The place looks different than I thought it did last night. This is the clearest water I've ever seen, freaking aliens, and it's gushing out from between two boulders that could be mini mountains, they're that big.

"Eli." I call over to him waking everyone up. Whoops. "Alright guys we probably have about two hours before the sun rises and I bet the Things will be coming to find us around that time. So let's…AHHHHHHHH!" I scream as everything goes dark and I'm drug backwards into the water.


End file.
